NGC 2018: Teen Stars Wreak Beautiful Havoc -- DEFINITELY WORTH A ZOOM! (Alex Woronow)

NGC 2018: Teen Stars Wreak Beautiful Havoc -- DEFINITELY WORTH A ZOOM!

NGC 2018: Teen Stars Wreak Beautiful Havoc

Equipment:
OTA: CDK24
Camera: Moravian 61000
Pixel Resolution: 0.75” (2x down-sampled)
Observatory: Heaven’s Mirror
Date of Capture: Dec 24
Date of Processing: Dec 24

Exposures Used:
Broadband: 2.2h
Narrowband: 11.9h
Subframes Discarded: 29%
Image Width: 22’ 50”

Target Description:
NGC 2018 lies in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf galaxy and companion to our Milky Way galaxy. The gravitational interactions between the LMC and our galaxy and the Small Magellanic Cloud (another dwarf galaxy) animated the interstellar clouds in these dwarf galaxies into collisions and concomitant high star formation rates. This region of the LMC has many young, blue-hot stars. (See image C, a stars-only view). As they form, the stars initiate fast, strong outward winds and high radiation pressures that push and contour the interstellar gasses. Each star is the locus of these outward flows that, in this image, collide and interact to form very dynamic-appearing, interacting shock fronts. A beautiful sight, for certain!

Processing Description:
First, careful and thorough culling of the subframes has improved the visible details in the results. Second, rigorously isolating emission-line-only components of the Ha and OIII images reveals more detail than their original mixtures of emission-line plus continuum. Combined with modern refocusing and sharpening AI algorithms, these two factors revealed the details of the cloud-star interactions.

Target Statistics:
Distance: 163K ly
Apparent Magnitude: 10.9
Pixel Span at Target: 2.93E+11 km
Object Diameter: 2.8’

Alex Woronow

Final
Original
B
C

B

Title: Information: Plate Solution

Uploaded: ...

C

Title: The young stars causing the shock waves seen in the nebula

Uploaded: ...

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